Night bus from Santiago to Mendoza = terrible idea. Generally, I like to take night buses because you can sleep while covering a lot of distance. The buses in Chile and Argentina are fantastic too! When I spoil myself, I get a cama seat, which is almost fully reclining. On this bus, however, I had a semi-cama (semi-reclining) seat; it's comfortable enough. Everything started off well.... they gave us blankets, pillows, and even a midnight snack - never had these amenities before! Unfortunately, we had a border crossing that we reached at 2am. This was Terrible. 2.5 hours of getting your Chilean exit stamp, your Argentinian entrance stamp, and then your hand luggage and stowed luggage manually searched. Border crossings have been a nuisance... but you usually get off at one border for 20-40 minutes to get your exit stamp, drive another 10-30 minutes to the other border, then wait 20-40 to get your entry stamp. So it's never taken so long before. I'd also never done it at night before, and certainly not at 2am. Not so fun. Probably only got about five hours of sleep that night and now I definitely have a cold. I also missed Aconcagua, the highest point in South America. I had great advice about where to sit and when to look on the drive from Santiago to Mendoza to see it (thanks Eli!)..... but by the time we finished with the border crossing, I was too exhausted to stay awake. (It was also too dark to see lol)
I arrived at the hostel around 7:30am, well before check-in, but my room was ready so I got to settle in. Hostel Empedrado in Mendoza = awesome. I had a two-bed "dorm" room that cost about $19. This hostel had free wi-fi, free laundry, a free 15 minute international call, crepes and DIY eggs at breakfast. Fantastic! (For breakfast, most hostels have free toast, tea, and coffee... sometimes you get cereal. And that's it.) I didn't have much time that morning though because my friends were there and wanting to leave on a morning bus to nearby Maipu, for wine tasting.
15 of us got on a 45 minute bus to Maipu. We rented bikes and the second we were all paid up, it started pouring rain. Mr. Hugo (bike-shop ower) gave us all a glass of wine as we waited out the rain. Next stop: the only place where you get free wine - most vineyards cost between 15 and 25 pesos ($4-$6) to taste. Next, we went to a really amazing place that made almost everything you could want: whiskey, absinthe, liquors, jams, olive oils, chocolate, etc. I'd never had a shot of absinthe before... it's pretty gross! They made the most amazing jalapeno salsa though - I bought three jars :) After a long bike ride, we ended up at the Termus vineyard. 10 of us split 5 bottles of really good wine... I had my wine with a really amazing steak that only cost about $10. I also had the best Malbec ever(!) but the bottle cost about $100 and I couldn't bring myself to buy it. Next time maybe? We even went to a beer garden later that day - delicious stout :) It took a while to get home and some girls got lost on their way, but we eventually made it back for an all-you-can-meat asado/all-you-can-drink wine night at the hostel. Such good food! It's six of us left from the Antarctica trip and this was our last night all together. On and off, we had a month together, and it's been a lot of fun :)
So wine tasting and the asado made for a really fun day, but I have deduced that even when boozing, biking isn't that fun. One girl fell into a ditch... (she fell two more times that day...) another girl just fell off her bike in the middle of the street. (Dangerous, but that was funny because she kind of just laid down and surrendered.) Everyone was okay minus some cuts and scrapes. I didn't fall or anything, but I ended up with my normal biking bruises...
Mendoza itself and the surrounding vineyards, I have to say, weren't so impressive. I think Sonoma and the Russian River Valley of California are incredibly beautiful and this was just eh. Lots of smog and trucks passing through so that that magic of biking through vineyards was essentially lost. I walked around the city of Mendoza for four hours, giving it its proper chance, and nothing I saw was particularly memorable. Definitely glad I went to see it, and will probably always remember my wine-tasting experience there, but I maybe don't have to come back here.
As I write this, I'm on a bus from Mendoza to Salta, in the north of Argentina. 19 hour bus ride and I got myself a cama seat. So awesome. We just finished a game of bingo and I am full because they served us dinner last night, and breakfast and lunch today. (Sometimes they give you one meal for a 28 hour bus ride and that's it!) I'm trying to be good to myself because my body seems to be more stressed out than I'd like it to be... Sorry if it's TMI but I've missed a period from putting too much stress on my body, I'm not sleeping enough, I'm fighting a cold, my knee starts to hurt anytime I do any hiking, biking, or running, and I've developed little red bumps on my arms and torso that I'm pretty sure are from my first bed-bug attack :/ That said, my spirits are high and I've really been enjoying the last two month of travel. I know I should take it easy, but I can't just yet.... I'll be in Brazil in less than two weeks and that's when I plan to properly recover and rest :)
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